The rhetorical moaning – les sons glissés as musical gestures

TRIO 2/2013 – Artikkelit: Assi Karttunen ASSI KARTTUNEN The rhetorical moaning Les sons glissés as musical gestures Introduction This paper is a part of an artistic research project focusing on the rhetorical actio (gesture, voice, mien, movement) of French baroque vocal music from a singular, musician´s point of being. The project started in August 2011 as a collaboration of two musician-researchers; DMus Päivi Järviö, mezzo soprano and DMus Assi Karttunen, harpsichordist. The project includes concerts, workshops, rehearsals, video recordings, experiments and demonstrations as well as articles describing the working processes. Thus the approach could be called embodied study of historical performing practices. Since the study of movement related to music is one of the key areas of modern music research, the project participates in the on-going discussions on historically informed musician´s embodied relationship to the music performed. In John Butt’s words; is the performance of music seen as a lapdog of the composer or of objective, factual evidence from the past rather than as a mode of cultural production in its own right? (Butt 2002, 22.) Music perceived as sound and movement brings forth the musician´s bodily way of reading the score. The movements may include sound-producing, soundaccompanying, communicative and sound-modifying gestures (ed. Godøy & Leman 2010, 22). The practice of calling this embodiment “gestures” instead of mere “movements” is based on the gesture´s ability to refer to the meaning embedded in the movement being used. “Movement denotes physical displacement of an object in a place, whereas meaning denotes the mental activation of an experience. The notion of gesture somehow covers both aspects and therefore bypasses the Cartesian divide between matter and mind” (Ibid.,13).1 1 One could of course ask, if Descartes ever aimed at dividing mind and matter into separate parts. In many of his texts, he is describing their co-operation. “For a perfect grasp of all this we need to recognize that the soul is really joined to the whole body, and can’t properly be said to exist in any one part of the body rather than in others. Why? Because the body is a unity that is in a way indivisible—its organs are so arranged that the removal of any one of them makes the whole body defective.” (Descartes 2010, 9.) Isn’t it a bit contradictory to talk about bypassing a divide, if there never was any division? 80 “In fact, we believe that musical experience is inseparable from the sensations of movement, and hence, that studying these gestures, what we call musical gestures, ought to be high priority task in music research.” (Ibid., 3.) In this article I discuss the musical gestures of moaning in the fourth recitative, Déjà Sirinx, (picture 2.) of Michel Pignolet de Montéclair’s cantata for one voice with accompaniment of basso continuo, violin and oboe or flute, Pan et Sirinx.2 In what ways do the cries of Pan manifest themselves in the vocal part and in my body as a harpsichordist and as a basso continuo player? What kind of movements do I embody while playing the basso continuo for the vocal part? How does the vocalist sing les sons glissés according to Montéclair’s notation and his Principes de musique (1736)? How could I imitate that in my harpsichord playing? To what kinds of larger rhetorical structures is the musical gesture of le son glissé connected? I conclude my article by claiming that tactile-kinesthetic ways of rehearsing and performing French baroque music is one way to stimulate and reinforce the multisensory perceptions the music provides. An exaggerated “natural cry” as a rhetorical gesture The traditional rhetorical actio does not aim at covering up the expressions of crying. Instead, these expressions are visible and surprisingly realistic. The movements include hand and head movements, inhales, and weeping. The eighteenth-century French orators like Le Faucheur (1657), Grenade (1703), Bretteville (ed. 1701) describe a voice expressing sorrow as plaintive, languishing and filled with sobs, sighs and moaning. (Chaouche 2001 B, 116-117.) Irish orator and clergyman Gilbert Austin’s Chironomia (1806) is one of the most important sources of classical, rhetorical actio, also because of its illustrations. Austin refers repeatedly to classical authors like Cicero, Quintilian as well as to French authors like Dubos, Marmontel and Noverre among others. He describes the gestures expressing sorrow and agony as follows: “The inclination of the head implies bashfulness or languor.” “The eyes weep in sorrow. “ (Austin 1806, 483.) “The hand on the head indicates pain or distress.” (Ibid., 484.) Also: “Distress when extreme lays the palm of the hand upon the forehead, throws the head and body back, and retires with a long and sudden step.” (Ibid., 490.) “Then suddenly the eyes are withdrawn, the head is averted, the feet retire, and the arms are projected out extended against the object, the hands vertical.” (Ibid., 487.) 2 IVe Cantate a voix seule avec un dessus de Violon, de Haubois, ou de Flute, second livre 1716. 81 TRIO 2/2013 – Artikkelit: Assi Karttunen Picture 1. The gestures of “grief arising”. Austin Gilbert [1806] 2010, plate 9. According to Austin, “distress when extreme lays the palm of the hand upon the forehead, throws the head and body back, and retires with a long and sudden step.” (Ibid., 490.) It’s not my intention to serve these pictures as guidelines for performing French music. However, it’s interesting to pay attention to the strong, bodily gestures associated with certain kinds of expressions; languor and distress. However, the cries performed too affectueusement (by using so-called le jeu affecté) can appear ridiculous if they are repeated several times and performed in an exaggerated manner. Austin mentions the fine line between tragedy and parody and reminds: “And sincerity itself, that first of qualifications in an orator, loses all its influence, and becomes absolutely ridiculous unless unaccompanied with dignified self-possession.” (Ibid., 241.) Molière used old-fashioned diction as le jeu affecté in his comedies in order to create a certain kind of pomposity. In general, he disliked actors who used disproportionate gestures just to please the audience and to beg for the so-called brouhaha, the buzz heard when the audience was impressed. (Chaouche 2001 B, 263-266.) However, in some cases the repetition and expansion were used purposely to exaggerate the chosen gesture. For example, in the second act of the 3rd scene of his Les Femmes savantes (1672) the choir of women admiring every single word uttered by the male poet, Trissotin, are ridiculed by the repetition of Trissotin’s previous words and the expanded exclamations of ”oh!”: the first one by Armande and Bélise and the second one by the “trio” consisting of the three women (Philaminte, Armande and Bélise) shouting ”oh!” in perfect harmony. (Molière [1672] 2012, lines 790-810.) Quintilian, Marcus Fabius Quintilianus was a Roman rhetorician. His Institutes of Oratory: Or, Education of an Orator became thoroughly studied in the eighteenthcentury France. The work was translated into French by Michel de Pure between 1663 and 1666. The original work was published around year 95 CE. Quintilian writes about hyperbola causing laughter in his education of an orator: “It very often raises a laugh; and if the laugh be on the side of the speaker, the hyperbole gains the 82 praise of wit, but, if otherwise, the stigma of folly. (Quintilian 2012, 143.) He describes also parody that is based on a borrowed style (or “tune”) from another context. This kind of stylistic citation can reveal the situation’s ridicule and make the listener understand something unexpected. “This partakes of the nature of parody, a term derived from the modulation of tunes in imitation of other tunes, but applied, catachrestically to imitation in verse or prose.” (Ibid., 162.) The influential On the Sublime, also called Peri Hypsus or Peri Hypsous, a work associated with Pseudo-Longinus or Longinus was crucial for the eighteenthcentury French oratory and performing arts in general. The earliest surviving manuscript, from the 10th century, was first printed in 1554. The famous translation into French was published in 1674 by Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux. Longinus describes auksesis as blowing something out of proportion, including repeated restartings and dragging. ”Closely associated with the part of our subject we have just treated of is that excellence of writing which is called amplification, when a writer or pleader, whose theme admits of many successive starting-points and pauses, brings on one impressive point after another in a continuous and ascending scale”. (Longinus XI, 2.) The exaggeration and the elevation of intensity were regarded as an important part of sublime oratory. However, the amplification turns easily into messy pomposity including irrelevant and silly figures of speech. “Such phrases cease to be tragic, and become burlesque, — I mean phrases like ‘curling torrent flames´ and ‘vomiting to heaven´, representing Boreas as a piper, and so on. Such expressions, and such images, produce an effect of confusion and obscurity, not of energy; and if each separately be examined under the light of criticism, what seemed terrible gradually sinks into absurdity. “ (Ibid., III, 1-2.) The rich and colourful oratory, when miscarried, might sound untrue and instead of the vast sea and “expansive flood” we hear childish falsehoods. (Ibid., XII, 3.)3 3 The exaggeration, l’exagération (Le Faucheur 1657) or la gradation (Bary ed. 1708) is also described in the eighteenth-century French sources. (Chaouche 2001 B, 108-109.) 83 TRIO 2/2013 – Artikkelit: Assi Karttunen Picture 2. The fourth recitative Déjá Sirinx by Michel Pignolet de Montéclair. 84 THE RHETORICAL MOANING IN PAN ET SIRINX In the end of the fourth recitative, Déjà Sirinx, of Michel Pignolet de Montéclair’s cantata for one voice with accompaniment of basso continuo, violin and oboe or flute, Pan et Sirinx,4 the other protagonist, Pan, is presented as a moaning, animal-like god. In the woods of Erymanthos Pan sees Syrinx, falls in love with her and starts to chase her until on the banks of the river the nymph suddenly disappears, without a trace, and changes into a reed. Pan´s arms are reaching for the nymph but instead, he finds himself embracing a bunch of reeds. The nymph has disappeared! The faun is sitting on a riverbank and crying silently. Lent Ô Ciel ! quel prodige nouveaux ! Le Dieu croit vainement embrasser la cruelle, il n’embrasse que des roseaux. Il gémit, il se plaint ; Ces roseaux lui repondent ; Il les enfle de ses soupirs, Dieux ! Avec ses soupirs quels regrets se confondent ! On dirait que Syrinx veut flatter ses désirs. Slowly Heavens! what a miracle! Pan thinks he is about to embrace his cruel prey, But he only grasps some reeds. He groans and laments; And the reeds give him an answer; He blows his sighs into them – Gods, with his sighs, what regrets are mingled! One would say that Syrinx wants to indulge his desires. English translations: Charles Medlam5 One of the most famous choreographers of the eighteenth-century France, Noverre, saw the nymphs as frightful, quicksilver-like creatures in their swift alertness; their volatile movements always ready for flight and escape. In one of his choreographies, the nymphs wore “elegant dresses” to contrast the fauns´ laced shoes, stockings and gloves “suggesting the bark of a tree”. A simple drapery of tiger-skin covered a part of the fauns’ bodies, all the rest appeared nude, except for a garland of leaves mingled with flowers that was thrown over the draperies. (Noverre =1760> 1975, 149.) “The nymphs are the picture of innocence, the fauns that of ferocity. The attitudes of the latter are full of pride and vigour; the position of the former express only the fright inspired by danger. The Fauns pursued the Nymphs, who flee before them, but are soon captured. Some of the Nymphs, however, profiting by the moment of confusion into which the ardour of the pursuit has thrown the Fauns, take to flight and escape.” (Ibid.,149.) This little narration is an allegory of rejected love and the suffering it causes. What could be an easier target for parody? The hardships of Pan are gently ridiculed by using hyperbola kind of amplification expressing Pan´s moaning. His non-verbal 4 IVe Cantate a voix seule avec un dessus de Violon, de Haubois, ou de Flute, second livre 1716. 5 Montéclair – Cantates à voix seule. Emma Kirkby, London Baroque. http://www.eclassical.com/shop/17115/art76/4494176-73b8da-BIS-1865_booklet.pdf 85 TRIO 2/2013 – Artikkelit: Assi Karttunen cries are repeated over and over. The exaggeration makes this scene not affecté but almost unbearably honest. As a result the scene is one of the most touching scenes of the whole cantata repertory. The parody seems to emphasize its emotionally charged attunement. The mode of fast motility (the chase scene in bars 4-9) changes into moaning in a minor (bar 15). The poem refers to the sound of swaying reeds, a hardly audible swish that answers to the sighs of Pan. It is noticeable that the whole section from bar 15 to 22 is played without any cadences. The wandering harmonies are restless, as though an internal pain is torturing the poor creature. The gentle, flexible swaying of the reeds is imitated by the bending pitch levels in the cries (bars 15-22). A single cry bends a semitone downwards and returns as if the tension caused by the bending was released by the quick 16th notes (bar 16, the port de voix, vocal part). The cries feel as though being carved into flesh by the friction of the sliding semitone. A slightly new way of moaning, an even more heartbreaking one, is introduced in bars 20-21. This time the cry includes a glissando. The new gesture expands temporarily, taking now 6 beats instead of the 4 beats of the previous gestures (in bars 16-17 and 18-19 in the vocal part). The bending of the pitch is now done by sliding it discretely a semitone upwards. Instead of coming back to the same pitch, the gesture is now ascending a fourth, from g1 to c2 (in bars 20-21) or from c2 to f2 (in bars 21-23 in the flute). This kind of auksesis works as a refined way of exaggerating. ”One impressive point after another is brought on in a continuous and ascending scale”, according to Longinus.6 In bar 21 Montéclair suggests that the flutist imitate the previous vocal passage (le son filé combined with le son glissé), if possible (imitez s´il se peut). The suggestion to imitate “if he can” (“he” meaning the flutist) tells us that the imitating might be approaching its limits. The weeping is interrupted by little pauses like sobs or spasmlike inhales amongst the tears (for example the eighth note pause in bar 16 in the vocal part). Crossing the fine line between tragedy and parody is near when the cries are heard five times in different voices imitating each other. At the same time the moaning also works as a “borrowed style” from animal kingdom to a God; “a modulation of tunes in imitation of other tunes”, like Quintilian maintains. Vocal techniques of the “natural cry” Montéclair writes specific instructions for vocalist and flutist concerning the notation in the fourth recitative Déjà Sirinx. In bar 15 he writes to the vocalist: coulez. He means that the singer should sing her semitone, d2 bending to c sharp2, in legato 6 The octaves are marked here using numbers indicating the octaves on top of ”the middle c ” marked as c1 (one-line octave). The octaves below the middle c (c1) are marked as c (small octave), C (great octave) and CC (contra octave). 86 and in a flowing way (couler-to flow). In bars 20–21 he is even more detailed and writes: “Filez impercectiblement du b mol au be carre en enflent le de la voix.” According to Montéclair´s Principes de musique (=1736> 1972) the unified and glassy voice (le son filé) should ascend without vibrato from b flat 1 to b1 while imperceptibly increasing the dynamics of the voice. Le son filé was described in Montéclair´s treatise as singing without vibrato and increasing the voice’s dynamics little by little poignantly. “The voice should be, so to say, unified like glass, during all the note´s duration.”7 By looking at the score and Montéclair´s treatise Principes de Musique (1736) one can see that the technique the singer is supposed to apply to this glass-like voice is glissando. Glissando, le son glissé, is described in Montéclair´s treatise as follows: “It´s difficult to explain in writing, what it is, the note that I have named Glissé, and almost as difficult to form it well in singing aloud. I will have recourse to a comparison, in order to make me understood. To take a step forward or backwards, one raises one´s foot in order to carry it to the place where it is supposed to be positioned. To sing a joined interval, one carries the voice carefully to the interval´s other end. One can also make a step by sliding the foot against the ground without raising it, like it is done in dancing. Le Son Glissé does in a way the same effect in order to make the voice ascend or descend without an interruption, by sliding it from one degree to the next one, and by gently passing by all the almost indivisibles parts that the semitones and whole tones contain, so that the passage goes without any discontinuity. (Montéclair [1736] 1972, 89.)8 Montéclair is also encouraging the singer to use le son enflé during the glissando. Le son enflé could be described as a voice that is expanded and fortified in dynamics. It is simply a crescendo done in a full voice using the diaphragm. Montéclair particularly warns the singer not to start le son enflé only by using the “head voice” or falsetto, because it is difficult to carry on this kind of voice without register breaks. (Ibid., 88.) The gestures used in the vocal part include (among others) preparatory inhaling movements; sound-modifying and communicative gestures of glissando, crescendo (les sons enflés); and sound-modifying and sound-controlling gestures of les sons filés. And of course the sound-producing gestures of the whole act altogether. 7 ”La voix doit être, pour ainsy dire, unie comme une glace, pendant toutte la durée de la note” (Monteclair [1736], 1972, 88). 8 ”Il est difficile de faire concevoir par écrit, ce que c´est que le son, que j´ay surnommé Glissé, et presqu´aussi difficile de le bien former de vive voix. Je vais me servir d´une comparaison, pour tacher de me faire entendre. Pour faire un pas en avant ou en arrière, on lève un pied pour le porter à l´endroit ou il doit estré posé. Pour entonner un intervalle conjoint, on porte sensiblement la voix sur le second terme de l´intervalle. On peut aussy faire un pas jusqu’ á son terme en glissant le pied sans le lever de Terre, comme on le fait dans la danse. Le Son Glissé fait en quelque façon le même effet puis que la voix doit monter ou decendre sans interruption, en glissant d´un degré à un autre prochain, et en passant doucement par touttes les parties presqu´indivisibles que le demi-ton ou le ton contient, sans que ce passage fasse aucunes sections” (Montéclair [1736] 1972, 89). 87 TRIO 2/2013 – Artikkelit: Assi Karttunen Picture 3. Le son filé and le son enflé and le son glissé described by Montéclair [1736] 1972, 88. 88 Picture 4. Le son glissé described by Montéclair [1736] 1972, 89 including a notated example. IMITATING LES SONS COULÉS AND GLISSÉS ON HARPSICHORD In this chapter I´m describing les sons glissés and coulés as a part of my basso continuo playing and as experienced from the first-person point of view. The sliding from one key to another seems to be an impossible task on harpsichord, especially since the string begins its diminuendo immediately after it has been plucked. Still, I try to eliminate the angular, détaché articulation between a and g sharp by adding a port de voix kind of coulé (a tied forefall) for the g sharp in my left hand (bar 15) and listening carefully to the joint of the ending note ringing in the acoustics to the beginning of the next one. I tie the notes together by using my fingers and letting the wrist follow that movement freely. These movements are a part of normal keyboard technique and could be described as sound-modifying and soundfacilitating gestures. 89 TRIO 2/2013 – Artikkelit: Assi Karttunen The ornamenting of the g sharp (the added port de voix in bar 15) on harpsichord has not been notated. However, this could be one way to imitate the cries of the singer (bar 16) and the flute (bar 17).9 The ending of the previous note (a) is eliminated in a most radical way by simply letting it sound together with the next note (g sharp). This overlegato is used especially to match with les sons coulés in the vocal part and in the obligato flute part.10 The sounds slide on top of each other and my ear follows their combined sliding half tone in the auditive space. The friction of the semitones in overlegato makes them slightly slower referred to the previous tempo; especially the first note of the semitone takes more time than usually, and feels heavy and sticky. I use a preparatory movement to start the gesture with accelerating speed, in order to give it the right kind of push (bar 15). My body rests more on the first note of the slide, and on the next one the hand doesn´t carry so much weight any more. My wrist makes a bow and lifts up on the second note of les sons coulés, still resting but more lightly. My hand feels the effort, the sensation of resistance the semitone gives against my finger movement. The arpeggiating is one of the means of sliding (blurring the change of the harmony) the chords together in bars 20-21 when the bass line rises from G to f, causing the g minor chord to change into the second chord (f in the bass line and the second joined by the fourth and the sixth in the right hand). A similar thing happens in bar 22, when the bass line´s c descends a whole step to B flat. The rolling of the chord can be done in a way that makes the line between the chords a bit blurred and unclear, resembling the ambiguity of the glissando. The glissando in the vocal part gets us to the realm of microtones, and at the same time the blurred chords give a delightfully fuzzy impression of something unreal, unexpected and unheard. The gesture reminds crying; the undulating and diffuse tone level, the rising and falling of its volume, the cracking and sobbing of the voice, and emotionally charged inhales between the cries. Especially in Baroque music the categories of different music-related gestures seem to overlap each other. An arpeggio can be done in so many ways that it inevitably implies sound-modifying as well as sound-producing. The gestures used to accompany these glissandos on harpsichord include preparatory, communicating and speed-accelerating movements, sound-modifying gestures of overlegato (blurring the impression of detached, articulated notes following each other), sound-modifying and communicating gestures of rolling, fuzzy chords mingling with each other, sound-facilitating gestures of the wrists following the finger movement, and sound-producing gestures of the actual pressing the keys. 9 One way among many other ways of ornamenting (trills, passages, for example). In this article I’m not able to demonstrate all those other options that I could imagine. 10 Saint-Lambert calls also overlegato-kind of techniques as liaison Saint-Lambert [1707] 1991, 12-14. 90 LE SON GLISSÉ AS A MUSICAL GESTURE Roland Barthes discusses embodied singing in his text about “the grain of the voice”. In this text he uses the concepts of phenotext (communication, denotation and signification) and genotext (primal, vital and semiotic), originally created by Julia Kristeva. By using the musical gesture of natural cry the cantate reaches out from the simple phenotext to the level of genotext . Both these levels are intertwined and depend on each other in the performer’s body. The semiotic genotext is experienced and perceived primarily and directly before the significant symbolical level. The intertwined levels are described by Barthes as melody working at the language that as a result “indentifies itself in this work.” (Barthes [1985] 2002, 150-151.) The passage including glissandos could be perceived as animal-like expressions even by listeners without French skills; as something that precedes the words or replaces the words when the emotions expressed are too overwhelming or too confusing to be verbalized. By looking at the poem one notices that Pan does not say anything. He does not have his own lines in this miniature play like Syrinx has; he just cries, moans, whimpers and sighs. Syrinx has at least asked for help earlier in the cantata poem and shouted: “Help me, chaste gods of the Water.”11 The materiality of the composed poem lies in its deep roots of lived-through bodily history. Therefore, by experiencing the levels of both phenotext and genotext, the performer is articulating the poem’s rich materiality. Already Marin Mersenne, a seventeenth-century philosopher, mathematician and music theorist, was interested in simple inflexions of the voice. He observed the similarities between the vocal utterances of animals and human beings. Mersenne´s la musique accentuelle was based on the fact that, for him, the natural, vocal ”accent”, un accent de la voix (une inflexion ou modification) is something common for both human beings and animals who cry to demonstrate their joy as well as their sadness.12 (Mersenne [1636] 1975, 365.) In the end of the seventeenth-century, rhetorician Bernard Lamy ponders upon the early development of the “first” languages. He enumerates the utterances of animals like mooing cows, neighing horses, roaring lions, and howling wolves, but makes a difference between these kinds of utterances and the more developed language of human beings. (Lamy [1675] 1757, 13-14.) Still, he observes that in human communication there is a level that works without a shared language. “Because the Turks who don´t speak French, don´t sigh differently than French do.” 13 (Ibid., 89.) 11 ”Secourez moy, [dit elle] Chastes divinités des Eaux.” 12 ”Or ces accents de passion sont communs aux hommes & aux animaux qui crient autrement pour monstrer leur joye que pour monstrer leur tristesse: C´est pourquoy j´ay dit de la voix ou de la parole, d’autant qu’il n´est pas nécessaire de parler pour faire des accens…” (Mersenne [1636] 1975, 367.) 13 ”Car le Turcs qui ne parlent pas François, ne soupirent pas d´une autre manière que les François.” (Lamy [1675] 1757, 89.) 91 TRIO 2/2013 – Artikkelit: Assi Karttunen Composer Jean-Philippe Rameau does not hesitate to call a baby´s first cries our first language and even a kind of music as such. ”One may say that music, considered simply as different inflexions of the voice; not including the gesture, must have been our first language since one has finally imagined terms to express oneself. It is born with us, this language; a child gives us proves of it already in a cradle.” Apparently Rameau maintains that expressing does not necessarily require rehearsed skills of a professional orator. (Rameau [1760] 1965, 165.) In the end of the eighteenth-century, philosopher Étienne Bonnot de Condillac describes a language of action, ”langage d´action”, consisting ”probably only of contortions and violent agitations”. According to him, this language was developed from the cries of pure passion. The impulse for this development required two creatures trying to communicate their needs to each other and observing each other´s language of action. He describes this language used by two (imaginary) children, a girl and a boy, descendants of Adam and Eve, lost in the desert before they knew how to speak: ”For example, he who suffered, by being deprived of an object which his wants had rendered necessary to him, did not confine himself to cries or sounds only; he used some endeavours to obtain it, he moved his head, his arms, and every part of his body. The other struck with this sight, fixed his eye on the same object, and perceiving some inward emotions, which he was not yet able to account for, he suffered in seeing his companion suffer. (Condillac [1798] 2010, 134-135, translation Thomas 1995, 64.)14 Musicologist, historian Downing A. Thomas has pointed out the living, embodied link between the vocal utterances, gestures, and music described in Condillac’ s philosophical approach. ”The gestures appear as embodiments, congealed versions of the passionate cries – as paroles gélées – carrying the voice into the world.” (Thomas 1995, 68.) According to Condillac, a cry of another (rather than one´s own cry) is a crucial element in the process of the cry becoming a sign, too (Ibid.,64-66). “However, if what Condillac describes as the first vocal language, which mostly consists of naturals signs, is a kind of music, then the pure cry of the passions must be a premusical or proto-musical vocalization (Ibid., 70.) Interestingly enough, philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, describing the invention of music, mentions an old myth (also cited by Athanasius Kircher following Diodorus Sicolus) associating the invention of music to the sounds the wind produces in reeds growing on the banks of Nile. (Rousseau 1768, 308.) Is it then surprising that the swaying and sighing reeds are in this cantata accompanied with the 14 ”Par exemple, celui qui souffrait, parce qu’il était privé d’un objet que ses besoins lui rendaient nécessaire, ne s’en tenait pas à pousser des cris : il faisait des efforts pour l’obtenir, il agitait sa tête, ses bras, et toutes les parties de son corps. L’autre, ému à ce spectacle, fixait les yeux sur le même objet ; et sentant passer dans son âme des sentiments dont il n’était pas encore capable de se rendre raison, il souffrait de voir souffrir ce misérable.” Condillac [1798] 2010, 134-135.) 92 pre-musical, vocal utterances, natural cries by a faun? This detail reveals new levels in the unified text and music of the cantata Pan et Sirinx ; it can also be experienced as a mythological fable about the origin of music. Maurice Merleau-Ponty writes about the difference between concrete and abstract movements. For example, the scratching movement one does when stung by a mosquito could be called a concrete movement. Instead, when one shows the bite to someone else, by pointing to it, the movement is already abstract. “The abstract movement carves out within that plenum of the world in which concrete movement took place a zone of reflection and subjectivity; it superimposes upon physical space a virtual or human space. Concrete movement is therefore centripetal whereas abstract movement is centrifugal. The former occurs in the realm of being or of the actual, the latter on the other hand in that of the virtual or the non-existent; the first adheres to a given background, the second throws out its own background.” (Merleau-Ponty [1945] 2010, 128.) The cry as a sign creates its own background and a frame of reference when it´s applied into arts such as descriptive, vocal music. Although the cry becomes an abstraction, it is perceived as a concrete gesture and unfolds in a clear and understandable way. The cries are immediately perceived as something painful and sensitive. By composing the passage of the crying Pan in a way that unites les sons glissés, les sons filés and les sons enflés with the more conventional notation, the composer is emphasizing the bodily gestures (of moaning and swaying) embedded in the notation. The sounds that are sliding through and by the correct tone levels undermine the impression of a skillful singer performing emotions and thus merely practicing her profession. Rather, they create an impression of a kind of regression from singing to vocal uttering, to a state without words and without rehearsed, exact tone levels.15 The notated cries in bars 15-22 are musical gestures as such. It depends on the performer and on the context how much the singer wants to include other bodily gestures into her performing. The centrifugal, abstract movements of representation, the musical gestures bringing forth an internally felt cry are therefore reaching out to the listener, providing him or her with a path, a hint or a key to the embodied, inter-subjective experience. They reinforce the received sensory data by creating bodily responses and thus luring us to a holistic, semiotic experience. The rhetorical actio in performance mirrors all the aspects of being in the world. It articulates the musician´s embodied relationship to music. 15 Although the glissandos require professional, and well-trained vocal technique. 93 TRIO 2/2013 – Artikkelit: Assi Karttunen Summary The tactile-kinesthetic ways of reading the score, including rehearsing, experimenting and varying is one way to approach French baroque music as being aware of one´s present-day performer´s body. In my project I have not aimed at creating an encyclopédie of baroque gestures implying fixed definitions of single movements. On the contrary, I have started with the most easily recognizable, almost self-evident rhetorical phenomena; explored and described the embedded specific vocal and instrumental techniques, versions, and possibilities. I have proceeded from the lower level to the higher organizational structures, from the self-evident to more multilayered, from the obvious to more inexplicable without a need to give static definitions for single rhetorical “actions”. For me this kind of processing has made it clear that the notation doesn´t tell us everything. The musician´s tactile-kinesthetic way of reading (and playing from) the score is a result of his comprehensive bodily training, the embodied history of previously played relevant repertory, and his abilities to conceive the tradition of rhetorical actio. Exploring and rehearsing rhetorical actio is not an aim as such, but it is an opening to multiform musical and interpretational possibilities. In such ways our project has participated in the on-going discussions (such as Butt 2002, Goehr 2007, Le Guin 2006, Haynes 2007, Kivy 1995, Taruskin 1995, Walls 2003, Wentz 2010) on the historically informed performer´s relationship to the music performed, and has thus been opening new perspectives to historically informed music-making, challenging the possible canons of performance practices of the baroque music, and varying its rehearsing principles.16 In my music example the rhetorical phenomena lie on different levels: on one hand as single, rhetorical devices, on the other hand as taking part in larger rhetorical structures. The moaning and whimpering related techniques work in a larger scale in the following manner: 1. The changing of the voice from singing to whimpering is a stylistic quotation, “tunes in imitation of other tunes”. This kind of citation of a “borrowed style” (a form of parody) refers to utterings of animals and as such, it reveals something unexpected, unheard. Combined with the poem, Pan et Sirinx, the music is expressing something that cannot be described verbally. 2. The expansion of the cries is also a classic rhetorical amplification, auksesis, which helps the listeners to approach the borderline between tragic and comic. This refined exaggeration mirrors human behaviour and makes it understandable. 16 Knowing and using the information described in the sources is, in my opinion, often essential for the performer. The question of how this information is used is, however, crucial. 94 3. The musical gesture of moaning (implying les sons filés, les sons enflés and les sons glissés) as a primal musical vocalization is inclined to bypass the language barriers. However, that doesn’t imply that it is interpreted in a universal or in an unchangeable way. A fixed interpretation of a musical gesture in a cantata (including the text together with the music) impoverishes the metaphor that is meant to be ambiguous and open to multiple associations. Rhetorical actio as a kit of tools (including gesture, voice, mien, movement) stimulates the mental, embodied activity rather than controls it. The historically informed music performance (HIP) including the research of rhetorical actio means in this case understanding the oratory’s inner logic and reviving the musical-poetical functions the metaphor has in the cantata rather than only engaging in certain historical performance practices related to a certain, fixed gesture, for example. This epistemological shift brings new challenges for us, HIP-performers and musician-researchers, and is worth analyzing as such. 95 TRIO 2/2013 – Artikkelit: Assi Karttunen LITERATURE Austin, Gilbert [1806] 2010. Chironomia, or, A Treatise on Rhetorical Delivery. Facsimile edition. London: Lightning Source UK Ltd. Barthes, Roland 2002. Œuvres Complètes IV. Paris : Éditions du Seuil. Butt, John 2002: Playing with history: the historical approach to musical performance. NY: Cambridge University Press. 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New York: Oxford University Press. Kivy, Peter 1995. Authenticities. Philosophical Reflections on Musical Performance. New York: Cornell University Press. Lamy, Bernard [1675] 1757. La Rhétoric ou L´Art de parler. Paris : Chez Aumont.- http://archive. org/details/larhetoriqueoul01lamygoog. [Accessed 27.12. 2012]. Le Guin, Elisabeth 2006. Boccherini’s Body. An Essay in Carnal Musicology. Berkeley & Los Angeles, Ca.: University of California Press, Ltd. Leman, Marc ed. 2010. Musical gestures sound, movement, and meaning. New York : Routledge. Longinus tr. 1890. Treatise on the sublime. Tr. into English by H.L. Havell, B.A. London, New York : Macmillan and co. – http://www.gutenberg.org/files/17957/17957-h/17957-h.htm [Accessed 8.5. 2012]. Medlam, Charles. Montéclair – Cantates à voix seule. Booklet. Emma Kirkby, London Baroque. BIS-CD-1865. – http://www.eclassical.com/shop/17115/art76/4494176-73b8da-BIS-1865_ booklet.pdf. [Accessed 11.2.2013]. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice [1945] 2010. Phenomenology of perception. New York: Routledge Classics. Mersenne, Marin [1636] 1975. Harmonie Universelle, contenant la théorie et la pratique de la musique. Näköispainos. Paris: Centre National de la recherche scientifique. Molière, Jean-Baptiste Poquelin 1672. Les Femmes savantes. -http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Les_ Femmes_savantes [Accessed 2.12.2012]. Montéclair, Michel-Pignolet de =1736> 1972. Principes de musique. Genève, Paris: Minkoff Éditions. 96 Noverre, Jean Georges =1760> 1975. Letters on dancing. London: Cyril. W. Beaumont. Quintilian 1875. Institutes of Oratory: Or, Education of an Orator. In twelve books. Literally tr. with notes, by the Rev. John Selby Watson. London: Bell - www.archive.org/stream/ quintiliansinst00quingoog#page/n170/mode/2up [Accessed 8.5.2012). Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 1768. Dictionnaire de Musique. Paris: Chez la veuve Duchesne. http:// imslp.org/wiki/Dictionnaire_de_musique_%28Rousseau,_Jean-Jacques%29 [Accessed 31.1. 2013]. Rameau, Jean-Philippe [1769] 1965. Code de Musique. New York : Broude Brothers. Saint-Lambert, M. de [1702] 1974. Prinçipes de Claveçin. Genève: Minkoff. Tarling, Judy 2004. The Weapons of rhetoric, a guide for musicians and audiences. Hertfordshire: Corda Music Publications. Taruskin, Richard 1995: Text and Act. N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 1995. Thomas, Downing 1995. Music and origins of language. Cambridge, Melbourne, New York : Cambridge University Press. Walls, Peter 2003: History, Imagination and the Performance of Music. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press. Wentz, Jed 2010. The Relationship between Gesture, Affect and Rhythmic Freedom in the Performance of French Tragic Opera from Lully to Rameau. Proefschrift. Universiteit Leiden. – https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/bitstream/handle/1887/16226/Jed%20Wentz_Gest%20Aff%20Rhyth%20 Freed%20correctedXXS.pdf ?sequence=4 [Accessed 27.12.2011]. The scores: Montéclair, Michel Pignolet de c. 1716. Pan et Sirinx, IVe Cantate a voix seule avec un dessus de Violon, de Haubois, ou de Flute. In, Tunley, David (ed. with commentary) 1990. The EighteenthCentury French Cantata: A seventeen-volume facsimile set of the most widely cultivated and performed music in early eighteenth-century France. Vol. 12. New York and London: Garland Publishing. [Cantates a une et a deux voix et avec sinfonie. Second livre c. 1716. Paris.] 97